Wild Home
by GuardianofWilds
Summary: Whew, I forgot to write a summary! Well this is just a study of Riku for now, but if the inspiration strikes this could be become a romance.


**Wild Home**

**You know I don't own D.N.Angel.**

**Enter Riku:**

A girl leaned out her window, letting the fierce winds of the storm embrace her as no man ever had. Though night had long since fallen, she felt as though she was seeing with utmost clarity, the hard rains giving her some greater sight as they pounded into her face. The street on which she lived was surreally empty, but not at all lacking in sound. The room she shared with her sister was an island of stillness amid the wailing of the storm. Pelting rain and screaming winds ripped through the usually peaceful suburbs, bringing in their wake a curtain of absolute darkness. Sometimes the girl wondered if ghosts roamed the world on wild nights such as this one. Even through her heavy sweatpants and shirt, she certainly felt a chill.

Lightning flashed and thunder rumbled with energy in the distance, sending a rapturous shudder down Riku's spine. The power of the storm never ceased to take her breath away; life at a fever pitch combined with righteous rage and terrible sorrow. Often she felt that she herself was one of these storms, one of truly wild brethren. She knew others would name her a fool for thinking so, but it was almost as though she was at home in the peaceful chaos.

It was in these moments that she let her soul run free, untamed, without the barriers she lay about it. Such were necessary to keep her world safe, safe from herself at its most translucent level. She knew the power she held in her heart, a power that lies in all who have the strength to acknowledge its presence, and knew the havoc it could wreak upon her peaceful existence. A caged tiger paced the confines of her human shell, and for her own good she kept it caged…

Except on stormy evenings like this one.

With a sigh, she let herself go, surrendering to herself bit by bit…moment by moment. She emptied herself of every fear, hate, passion, hope, or joy she kept in her heart, where the world couldn't hope to see it. Inside her, the tiger snarled in furious joy, the joy of release, of the wild desire to run, to fly simply because for so long it had not been able to. Riku Harada was nothing but a channel of the power that was _she_, for Riku and _she_ were entirely different enmities, one visible and one not, one tangible and one _real_. _Real_ isn't something you encounter with your senses, but something of a higher level of being, more than matter, and not entirely spirit. It is the spirit's being, it's existence, what makes it what it is. The very fact that our spirit exists is its greatest strength, for without that it wouldn't even be nothing.

Riku did little of this conscientiously, and these truths she thought of very little. It was all the emotion, the things in her she saw as most petty, that she wished to be cleansed of. She came very close sometimes, very close to loosing the tiger within, but always she thought of the price, and stepped back. Such freedom would be a blessed release, but tigers aren't meant to be pets.

Tigers are hunters, and there is no way to tell them what to hunt.

It broke her heart sometimes, but if she let her wild companion roam free, then she'd tell him. She'd tell him _everything_. She'd spill it all, and then he'd break her heart in the same way he did every time he gazed her sister's way. Her sister, beautiful Risa, with her girly charm and innocent face; she was the one to whom that boy sold his heart. A good choice it seemed; what fool would trust his heart to a tiger? But he always proved himself so different, above normal human fears…

Daisuke.

In desperation, she searched for some excuse for her fear of him. She'd lose everything she had built up over the years, lose any friendship he felt for her. The humiliation of rejection would be too much. There was nothing to be gained; he couldn't possibly love her. But none of these satisfied the tiger; no loss was greater than the imprisonment imposed upon it. The violent tremors of the storm enveloped her.

She needed a walk.

Careful not to disturb her twin's slumber, Riku shut the back door quietly behind her, slipping through quickly to protect her not so long red hair from its jaws. The tempest outside swirled crazily about her, blasting rain and turbulence into her face in a fierce sort of welcome. She was soaked in seconds, but unlike many girls, couldn't make herself care. The wetness felt more like home than home did sometimes.

Crashing thunder welcomed her in, and in the darkness Riku's tiger ran free.


End file.
